


Gridstuck

by winglessdrake



Category: Homestuck, Tron - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe, Authorial Pretension, Crossover, F/F, F/M, Gen, M/M, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-01-13
Updated: 2012-08-31
Packaged: 2017-10-29 10:38:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 3
Words: 4,647
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/318990
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/winglessdrake/pseuds/winglessdrake
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The Grid is an amazing mystery, full of infinite wonders -- and dangers. John Egbert and his three friends only wanted to reunite with the guardians they lost twelve years ago, but instead they find themselves fighting not only for their lives, but for the freedom of two worlds.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Game Begins

The world below was lit up with over a million lights, each shining steady through the cold, clear air, and Jane Egbert sailed above it all on a band of light. How many times had her dear friends tried to interest her in a swifter conveyance, only to receive a polite refusal? Too many times to count; the four of them had been visiting the Grid for many years now. They had built this world nearly from scratch; what once was just a handful of hive-ships and a few hundred frightened, starving people, was now a realm to rival any of Earth’s greatest cities. How could she strap herself into a light-cycle or airship, or worse, hide herself away in the Sea of Information, and miss it all? She treasured these quiet moments, when she could set aside her duties as User and just admire her work.

Her companions seemed to approve of her decision, if not for the same reasons; Jane stood at the rear of the solar sailor simulation, but now she looked up to the front, and was hard-pressed to hide a pleased grin and girlish giggle. To the programs, they might be the honorable Signless and Disciple, but she would always think of them as Curlclaw and Quickcut, her dearest friends, and she was very happy for them both. It had only been a few quadrillion cycles – two trips, almost a year as time was measured on Earth – since they’d announced their relationship to the rest of their friends; a relationship that seemed to have nothing to do with the arcane way in which programs arranged their closest emotional ties, but was nevertheless very real and powerful for them both. Jane may have once entertained feelings for Curlclaw, but looking at the two of them now she felt nothing but peace.

The stream of light that was the gateway home was growing ever larger in the distance; Jane sighed regretfully. Not one of the four of them could afford to remain on the Grid forever, though she often suspected that only one or two things – specifically, one or two people – held the elder Strider back. But all the same, she wished it were possible. The programs were advancing so quickly these days, now that the infrastructure of their society had been stabilized and there was nothing left to do but grow. It seemed like she had missed more and more, each time she returned, and like a parent who must leave town on a business trip just as a toddler is beginning to take its first steps, she regretted every second spent away, no matter how much she cherished her time with her son and darling grandson.

Dear John...he was nearly six, and Jane adored him more than anything else in the entire world. Right now his father had his hands full raising him up, but perhaps in a few years, when John had become the fine young man Jane just knew he would be...? Oh, how she would love to show the Grid to them both – and she was quite certain her friends felt the same way about their own young charges.

An argentine airship sailed overhead, its runner lights colored light pink; looking down Jane could see a orange light-cycle speeding along a fabricated road that disappeared behind it and reappeared before – Strider always had been a show off. As the solar sailer automatically docked itself she could just begin to see a tumultuous crackling stir the surface of the Sea of Information, far below both platform and road, as Jake’s submersible completed its ascent. The four friends met on the main platform, within sight of the gateway; accompanying all of them were their closest companions among the group of twelve programs that had helped the Users bring order and peace to this lonely world, and for a time the air rang with pleased greetings and exchanges of the adventures each had most lately experienced.

But somebody was missing; Jane looked around, troubled. Not just one somebody, but four were noticeably absent from the happy group: Saltcore, leader and progenitor of the programs, Dualscar, her faithful admiral, Twingaze, the closest thing they had to an expert on the mysterious System that ran the Grid, and Deadword, voice of the dead and sole living link to the Grid’s pre-contact history. Saltcore at least was no doubt busy at the palace, and Dualscar could never be found far from her side, but where were the other two...?

She wasn’t the only one to notice; Curlclaw had also been looking around, no doubt trying to find his friend Twingaze in the press. He turned to her now, brow knit with some unnamed concern – but before he could speak, the mystery resolved itself into stiletto heels marching across the pavement, and a strident voice called out, “Users!”

Jane turned, and there was Saltcore, clad in black cloth and tyrian lights with the royal trident clutched in her hands --

“Leaving so soon?” the self-styled Empress of the programs purred. “But you’ve only just arrived.”


	2. The Heroes Gather

It was raining hard when they finally got out of the police station, but Dave didn’t seem to notice. Or he just didn’t care, John thought with a shiver, and turned his collar up. Maybe – okay, probably it was because he was already watching, but for once he was faster than Dave and caught him by the upper arm when he tried to turn towards the impound lot. 

“Dude,” Dave said, face like a plastic mold and voice hitting just the right tone to make John feel like the worst kind of moron for forcing his friend to point out the obvious. “My bike’s this way.”  
It was only the knowledge that Dave had perfected that exact expression and tone of voice with a mirror and tape recorder that kept John frogmarching his hopefully-not-so-former friend out to the parking lot. “Yeah,” he said, “and it’ll still be there when we come back for it tomorrow morning. Tonight you’re having dinner with me and Rose and Jade, and then you’re going to sleep in a bed that _doesn’t_ have bedbugs or anything else nasty. Dude,” he said, when it looked like Dave was still planning to balk. “I just bailed you out of _jail_. You owe me.” John had never practiced his “stern look” in front of a mirror or anything like that, but he thought it was pretty good! Anyway it was good enough to make Dave’s mask crack a little. Okay, so it was just a tiny little smirk, but that was still worth something. 

“Usually when people pull that kind of line it’s because they want the guy they’re pulling it on to give them something,” Dave said, but he let John pull him out into the visitor’s parking lot and stood placidly while John tried to relocate his car. 

“Okay, so think of it as me blackmailing you for the privilege of your presence over dinner,” John said jovially as he finally found and unlocked the car. He wasn’t even worried anymore about whatever it was that made Jade insist all four of them be present tonight; instead he was thinking about tomorrow, and trying to figure out what he could do to make Dave stick around. It’d be great, having all four of them under the same roof again, like when they were kids. He probably couldn’t count on Dave suddenly falling under the spell of nostalgia, but there had to be some way to make him stay...

“With how much you shelled out tonight, you could probably blackmail me into the privilege of my presence in your bed,” Dave said as he climbed into the passenger’s seat.

“Dude, gross!” John yelped, and laughed.

***

Maybe he should have worried a little more. It was just like when they were kids, all right; only this time, John’s dad wasn’t there to make them all stop poking at each other. Having an associate’s degree in psychology hadn’t made Rose’s dinner table psychoanalyses any less insufferable – and Dave’s “I’m only here for the food” attitude gave her ample ground to work with. John tried to keep the conversation on safe topics, like anything other than Dave’s “obvious” personality disorder and Rose’s lesbianism – not cool, Dave – but it wasn’t easy. Jade tried to help, but longwinded explanations of complicated innovations in the field of nuclear physics were only a conversational improvement compared to the things she _could_ talk about.

“You know, I found the cutest painting on the internet the other day,” she was just saying cheerfully when Dave threw down his napkin and pushed his chair back from the table. 

“Got to take a leak,” he muttered, and quickly left the room.

“Do take care not to fall in,” Rose said brightly to his retreating back. 

“Rose!” John hissed, and then remembered that this was what, the second time Dave had ever been in his apartment, ever? “Bathroom’s third door on the left, Dave!” he called.

“Thanks,” Dave’s voice drifted back from somewhere down the hallway. Rose, meanwhile, was wearing a look of practiced innocence. 

“Do you have to do this now?” John asked her, as he started clearing the table. Rose gave him a secretive smile as she picked up the mostly-empty bowl of mashed potatoes.

“I wasn’t aware that I was doing anything,” she said, and turned towards the kitchen, only to run straight into Jade and the meatloaf platter. 

“Nothing except what you always do,” Jade retorted, holding the platter close to her stomach to prevent a spill. “We get it, you’re still mad at Dave. But can you at least _try_ to give it a rest? We need him!”

“Need him for what?” John asked, his curiosity overriding his upset. He didn’t really feel like scolding anyone anyway. “And what’s all the secrecy for? You were really insistent that all four of us had to be here tonight, but you didn’t say why.”

“You mean you weren’t after the pleasure of my company after all?” Dave said, reappearing in the doorway. He leaned against the doorjamb, casually crossing his arms. “Egbert, I’m hurt.”

“Don’t be silly, Dave,” Jade said firmly. “We’re all happy to see you. But John’s right,” she continued quietly, and put the platter back down on the table. “There’s something I need to tell all of you.” She paused and looked at the three of them, chewing her lower lip. 

“Well, by all means,” Rose teased her gently. “Do continue to keep us in suspense; I’m quite enjoying the wait.”  
Jade huffed out a quiet laugh, and then said quickly, as though trying to get it out all at once, “I think I’ve figured out where our guardians are.”

The reactions of her three friends were as immediate as they were dramatic. Rose made a faint gulping sound and clutched the bowl she carried close to her stomach, as though worried about dropping it; Dave paused for a moment, then slid his sunglasses up onto his forehead, as if unsure that he’d heard Jade right and thinking getting a good look at her might clear up the issue; and John simply stood blinking at her, at a loss. Of course Dave was the first to recover, sliding his shades back down and saying, in an irritated voice, “Harley, what the fuck?”

Jade flushed slightly, giving him a disappointed look. “Let me explain,” she said. 

***

The three of them had moved as one into John’s living room, where he and Rose now sat side by side on the couch. Dave was still slouching in the doorway, his face as motionless as a rock, and though Jade had begun by sitting in the easy chair, she quickly sprang to her feet and began pacing the room.

“I know my job’s a little obscure, so I’ll try to keep things as simple as possible,” she was saying. “It’s important that you understand everything that I’m about to tell you. For the past two years, Skaianet’s had me working on something we in the labs call a transportalizer; a device that could make quantum teleportation possible on the macro level.” She grinned savagely. “That’s what they’ve been telling us, anyway. In reality I’ve thought for a while now that there was more to it – and four weeks ago, I was proved right.” Her pacing sped up slightly. “We’d hit a major dead-end – I won’t go into detail, but most of my coworkers thought the board would give up and shut down the project for sure. Instead they gave my supervisor the personal notes of the previous scientist to have worked on it; a Dr. R. Lalonde. Your mom, Rose.”

Rose groaned quietly, so quietly that John wasn’t sure anyone other than him had heard. Her hands had been folded in her lap, the fingers interlaced; her knuckles were quickly turning white. John put his hand on her knee, trying to comfort her, but she didn’t seem to notice. 

“I hacked my supervisor’s computer,” Jade admitted, without a trace of guilt. “I just wanted to see what the notes said – and right away I noticed something weird. My grandpa had an entire company to run, but he’d taken a personal, _prolonged_ interest in Dr. Lalonde’s work. In fact from the way she talked about him it sounded like he was down in the labs with her nearly every day. And it wasn’t just him – even though they didn’t have any background in physics or computer science, John’s grandma and Dave’s bro were in on it too! They were all working on the transportalizer together!” Her pacing slowed, then stopped. Jade wrapped her arms around herself. “At first I thought maybe there’d been some kind of accident,” she said quietly. “Maybe Skaianet hushed it up to avoid the bad PR – but then I realized that they hadn’t been working on teleportation at all.” Her voice firmed, turned full of amazement. “Thirty years ago, when my grandpa was still an explorer, he discovered a deserted island in the south Pacific. He found _something_ on that island, something inexplicable, and brought it back to the States. Dr. Lalonde was in charge of unlocking its secrets, but somehow John’s grandma and Dave’s bro also got involved. The four of them were working on it together when they disappeared.”

“So they were some kind of dream team, great,” Dave said gruffly. “What does that have to do with them pulling a runner when we were six?”

Jade looked at him, but her mind was plainly elsewhere. “The way Dr. Lalonde talked about what they found...” she said dreamily. “She never identified it precisely, but she talked about it like it would change the world, completely revolutionize the human condition. I think...I believe my grandpa _did_ discover a transportalizer, but it didn’t lead to anywhere on Earth. It led to another world, one governed by physical laws very different from ours. That’s where our guardians are.”

If a person claiming psychic abilities had just then entered the room and been offered a sizable commission to divine an explanation for the stunned silence that just then ruled over all, he or she would surely have considered the money to be already in the bank when they guessed that all present were wondering if Jade, sweet, brilliant Jade Harley, had finally said farewell to her marbles. But in this they would perhaps have been mistaken, for Rose was the first to break the silence by brightly asking, “So when do we leave?” 

“What the _fuck_ , Rose?” Dave burst out, speaking over Jade’s cheerful reply. He uncrossed his arms, pointing at Jade. “Don’t tell me you’re actually taking this crazy shit seriously?”

“Is there any particular reason why I shouldn’t?” Rose asked him, likewise interrupting Jade’s affronted huff. “I mean aside from a general sense of incredulity.”

“It sounds so far-fetched, though,” John said hesitantly. This time Jade refused to be unheard.

“That’s what they said to Watson and Crick!” she shouted, shocking her friends back into silence. She glared fiercely at Dave and John. “Jesus Christ you guys, do you really think I haven’t at least _tried_ to confirm my theory? I’ve been studying Dr. Lalonde’s journal for _weeks_! I’ve done tests that –”

“I’m sure it would take too long to explain,” Rose interrupted smoothly and pushed herself to her feet. “All the more reason to take you at your word and leave at once.”

“Leave for where?” John asked plaintively, completely mystified. 

“For the other world John, duh!” Jade squealed, and took Rose’s hands. “We can leave right now, if you guys are ready; the transportalizer’s locked up at Skaianet HQ, but I already know exactly how to get in.”

“I don’t believe this,” Dave snapped. “Are you all out of your goddamn minds?” At some point he’d moved away from the doorway completely; he now stood between the other three and the front door, blocking the path. “Wake up already, Jade,” he hissed. “You don’t have to go to some make-believe world to find our guardians; just search all the casinos in Rio. They didn’t feel like looking after a bunch of brats anymore, so they left. End of story.”

Jade flushed as well, and might have lit back into Dave if Rose hadn’t once more coolly intervened. “In case you’ve forgotten, Dave,” she said, a frame of steel backing every softly spoken word, “Skaianet did exactly that when they first went missing, and found nothing – not even a single trace. Can’t you see how suspicious that is? While your brother, John’s grandmother, and maybe even my mother might have been able to slip under the radar, billionaire CEOs don’t just vanish off the face of the Earth – unless they do it literally.” 

“Exactly!” Jade said. “Don’t you get it, Dave? This is the first real lead we’ve ever had!” 

Facing a united feminine front, Dave appealed to John for an injection of masculine sensibility. “You’re not buying into this bullshit, are you bro?” 

He could have saved himself the effort. “I don’t know if I am or not,” John said slowly. “It _sounds_ too good to be true...But Rose is right, it’s not like we’ve been given any, more plausible leads.”

“That’s not quite what I said,” Rose interjected in an undertone. John grinned helplessly at her and continued.

“All I know for certain,” he said, voice firming, “is that Rose and Jade seem pretty certain. And that I’d regret it if I didn’t at least go _look_.” 

Dave’s lips thinned with poorly suppressed emotion. “Fine,” he said after a moment, his voice near-perfectly flat. “You guys want to try a little B&E, go for it. But I’m out.” He turned and stalked towards the front door, yanking his jacket off the coat rack and pulling it on with tense, jerky motions.

“Wait, Dave,” John said, reaching out to his friend – but Jade stopped him, taking his hand in hers.

“No, John,” she said, with a firm shake of her head. “It’s his decision – though I wish you’d change your mind, Dave,” she added, looking at his turned back.

There might have been some hesitation in the set of Dave’s shoulders as he popped his collar and reached for the doorknob – but it might also have been a trick of the light.


	3. The Game Begins

The rain had tapered off, leaving behind a chill in the air that cut through thin coats. The three friends who piled out of John’s car didn’t look especially heroic; if it hadn’t been for Jade’s determination and the force of will with which she lead John and Rose across the Skaianet parking lot, John at least would have strongly considered turning back. They’d parked close to the side of the building, out of sight of the glass entryway and the guard station in the foyer; now Jade lead them by foot to the back of the building, where she busied herself with a small panel partially recessed by a large metal door. 

John looked around slowly, shivering a little against the cold. It’d been dark for maybe an hour, hour and a half by now, and they were the only people out here. Rose was standing a little ways from the door, looking thoughtfully back the way they’d come. John sidled up to her, lowering his voice.

“Hey,” he said quietly. She acknowledged him with a slight nod. “I just wanted to know, before we get in over our heads, if you’re really taking this seriously,” he said to her, with a quick glance over his shoulder at Jade. 

Now Rose turned to focus on him. “I believe I made myself clear back at your apartment,” she said coolly. 

“I know that!” John said quickly – and too loudly; Jade looked back over her shoulder at them and hissed a quiet “Hey, pipe down over there!” John waved at her with a sheepish grin and she went back to her work. 

“I know that,” he said again, more quietly. “It’s just...I keep trying to picture it...” He trailed off, shrugging a little. “What exactly are we going to find, our guardians hanging out in some otherworld lab? Oh hey kids, nice to see you, guess we lost track of the time!” He hadn’t meant to sound that bitter, but once said the words couldn’t be taken back. They hung in the air between him and Rose, and looking into her eyes John could see that she understood what he meant. 

She replied to him slowly, as if testing every word before letting it past her black-painted lips. “In all honesty, I don’t think we’ll discover anything so dramatic,” she said. “Though you have to admit,” and now her manner brightened slightly, a small smile curving her lips. “It really would be something if we did, wouldn’t it?” 

Jade suddenly spoke before John could reply. “Aha!” she said, stepped back from the panel and the door, which in turn began to ponderously slide open. “I told you I could get us in,” she said smugly to her friends, who had quickly rushed up to join her. 

“We never doubted you for an instant,” Rose said magnanimously; John’s attention was caught by the door, which was still in the process of opening...and opening...and opening...

He caught Jade’s eyes and found that she was mirroring his goofy grin. “That’s a big door,” he told her, and the two of them collapsed into giggles. Rose sighed and swept past of them with an exaggerated roll of her eyes; Jade threw an arm around John’s shoulder and the two quickly followed her – into the interior of Skaianet.

***

They quickly found their progress blocked, frustratingly enough, by another door, one made of wood with a simple metal lock. Jade nearly growled with frustration when she tried the handle; “This wasn’t supposed to be locked!” she said with dismay. “Rose, do you have a hairpin?” 

“I didn’t know you knew how to pick locks,” Rose commented quietly as she handed over the requested item.

“I don’t,” Jade said grimly as she knelt on the glistening tile floor. “But turning back now would just be stupid.”

“You guys are pathetic,” a new voice said from behind them; the three friends turned, John and Jade’s faces lighting up with surprised joy. 

“You changed your mind!” John exclaimed, relieved, for none other than Dave Strider stood there in the hallway, hands tucked deep into his jean pockets and a small smirk playing under his shades. 

“I figured you wouldn’t get very far without me,” he said with a nonchalant shrug. “’Sides, somebody had to come along and play grown-up, since I guess Lalonde’s finally given in to the insanity.” Rose raised her eyebrows slightly, but took the slight in stride as Dave quickly moved to join them, taking the hairpin from Jade – and a fierce hug along with it. 

“I’m glad you’re with us,” she said into his ear; Dave awkwardly patted her on the back, seeming relieved when she finally let go and gave him some space to work. He knelt by the doorknob, pulling a safety pin out of his pocket and sliding it and the hairpin into the lock with obviously practiced ease.

“Where did _you_ learn how to pick locks?” John couldn’t help but ask, incredulous. 

“Boy Scouts,” was Dave’s indifferent reply. Jade snorted quietly with hastily suppressed laughter, almost drowning out the sound of the lock clicking open. 

***

The room Jade eventually led them into was large, though it seemed small and cluttered thanks to the vast, tangled apparatus occupying it. Made of white pipes and large enough to walk on – in fact John could see several metal walkways winding through it – it barely looked like a computer at all. 

“Is that it?” he heard Rose ask, standing somewhere behind him. 

“What were you expecting, a cauldron?” was Dave’s derisive reply. Rose’s snarky reply –something about broomsticks – was lost in the shuffle as Jade pushed past them both with a huff, stepping down onto the metal staircase that in turn became a path leading into the heart of the apparatus. 

“This is all just window dressing,” she said, striding forward confidently. “Monitoring equipment and such. Some of it probably goes all the way back to when Grandpa probably first brought the transportalizer back with him!” She lead her three friends forward, into the tangle of pipes and grating, keeping up a constant stream of cheerful chatter that went almost completely over John’s head – but when at last they reached the center of the apparatus, even Jade fell silent.

This time there was no need for questions. At first glance the transportalizer – if that was really what it was – appeared to be sitting on top of a green cube, hung with wires and surrounded on three sides with every kind of sensor John had ever heard of, and several he hadn’t. On the fourth side was a bank of computers, one of which Jade had turned on and begun to run some kind of program. A faint, intermittent rumble filled the room, and John realized his mistake. What he had thought was the transportalizer – a sort of grey platform, inscribed with faded lines forming some kind of many-sided geometric shape – was only a part of the whole, the tip of the iceberg. It rested upon a green box, about five feet long in every direction; a box that was now beginning to softly glow. The rumbling increased, taking on a deeper tone; John found himself, absurdly enough, thinking of summer mornings with his friends, catching frogs by the lake...

“That is way cooler than a broomstick,” he heard Dave mutter behind him, and had a hard time suppressing a giggle. 

Jade turned away from the computer, looking over her three friends with open arms and an eager grin. “This is it,” she said. “I don’t know what’s going to happen exactly, but I think the transportalizer’s ready to do. All we have to do is stand on it.”

“So what are we waiting for?” Rose asked, and taking Dave’s hand she lead him over to the cube. He helped her up, muttering something about disintegration and – was that a Star Trek reference? – while Jade did the same for John. They stood around the grey platform; somehow, without realizing what he was doing, John had taken Dave’s hand, and Jade had taken Rose’s. John hoped he didn’t look as nervous as he felt. 

“Well, here goes nothing!” he said brightly, and stepped forward. The last thing he heard was Dave saying, “Way to fucking go Egbert, why not just say so far so –“ But John never got to hear what he was supposed to say after that, because there was a bright light, a sudden lurch – and then things got _really_ weird.


End file.
